James Harms on his contributions to the Diode anthology, Beyond the Frame
In Beyond the Frame, poets respond to vintage abandoned photographs, and to the experimental, abstract images that were created from the photographs. The anthology features a multiplicity of voices, styles and perspectives. Like Allan Sekula in his meditation on a found triptych of photos, the abandoned images in Beyond the Frame appear “in an almost archaeological light.” Like Sekula, the poets sought to discover “What meanings were once constructed here ... who spoke, who listened, who spoke with a voice not their own?” Here, poet James Harms reflects on his two poems included in the anthology: "Slackers" and "Figured You Out."
I OFTEN RESPOND TO PAINTINGS and photographs after the fact, days or weeks, even months or years later: something appears in a poem I’m writing that I eventually trace back to a detail from a larger visual composition. It’s rarely the image in its entirety that necessitates some sort of poetic response from me; I’m drawn to the parts more than the whole.
In the case of the photographs collected here, one detail and one curiosity ended up inspiring the poems into being. Over the course of my life, I’ve had three friends who regularly wore Vuarnet sunglasses. Though we all skied growing up, and though Vuarnets were (and are) popular with a certain sort of skier, only these three were able to pull off the sense of style that those distinctive sunglasses required. Well, maybe only two of them; the third managed to overcome his stylistic deficits with an overwhelming smile and endless charm. He was also endlessly brilliant and died young, which is why he isn’t in this poem ('Slackers'). But maybe he is. Certainly, a mutual friend of ours is, and he’s wearing Vuarnets. And it’s the Vuarnets in the photograph that started the poem.
As for "Figured You Out," a sun flare or a defect in the negative created "A hole in her body where the light comes through." Seeing that photo sent me back to the poem, which was hopelessly and endlessly in progress. In short, that strange glitch in the image became the organizing anomaly that pulled the poem together. That happens sometimes: the poem completes itself off the page first before it becomes a whole in language. No pun intended.
JAMES HARMS is the author of eight books and four chapbooks of poetry including, most recently, Rowing with Wings, Comet Scar, and After West (all from Carnegie Mellon University Press). He has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, and the West Virginia Arts Commission, among others, as well as three Pushcart Prizes.
In Beyond the Frame, poets respond to vintage abandoned photographs, and to the experimental, abstract images that were created from the photographs. The anthology features a multiplicity of voices, styles and perspectives. Like Allan Sekula in his meditation on a found triptych of photos, the abandoned images in Beyond the Frame appear “in an almost archaeological light.” Like Sekula, the poets sought to discover “What meanings were once constructed here ... who spoke, who listened, who spoke with a voice not their own?”
